The Living Dead

by Kraus, Daniel

  The team veered around the children, trampling the edge of the Garden. Long leaves of dead corn whipped their cheeks. Nishimura ignored it, but saw Charlie press against her straps, as if wanting the tendrils’ witch doctor touch, anything to stay alive for a few minutes longer. Like the fort itself, the Garden was triangular and took up one-third of the lawn. Even with the corn, strawberries, marigolds, black-eyed Susans, primroses, lilies, and philodendrons shriveled for the season, the wildness was evident. The lushness that had swallowed North America belonged to the dead, and in humility, Fort York had built the Garden to prove humans, too, could let beauty exist without destroying it.

  Space opened up. The Face broke into a run. Greer and Nishimura did likewise, with Hoffmann right behind. They passed the fort’s center point, the Master Sundial: four thirty, daylight nearly snuffed. Due west, straight down a concrete path, Nishimura glimpsed the Armory, the settlement’s most potent symbol.

  Few people made it all the way to Toronto without a gun, if not several, but upon joining Old Muddy, those firearms were placed inside the Armory, which was more than locked up—it was bricked up. The proximity of firearms was like the proximity of Slowtown: the point was to actively choose not to possess them. Humans had built countries of annihilation with their militaries, whole cities of destruction like Olympia. Master Chief Boatswain’s Mate Karl Nishimura had been complicit in the world’s eager pursuit of death and sympathized with death’s choice to fight back.

  Because a herd of fresh zombies hadn’t been spotted in years, a cache of only three emergency firearms was passed person to person on the fort’s revolving Custodial Council—custodian had been purposefully chosen, to remind councilors they were servants, not leaders. Even that small allowance had dropped poison into their cups. The Chief flashed through Nishimura’s mind, not the wizened, wrinkled, ponytailed sage children drew but the scattered shards of her skull after he’d pulled the trigger.

  The Face scared off a pair of necking teens. They’d been kissing at the Circular, a semicircle section of wall with two embrasures, both outfitted with rusted, nonworking cannons. Greer hoisted the stretcher above them and passed through an opening, forcing Nishimura to do the same. His fifty-eight-year-old muscles wobbled and the stretcher dipped, but Hoffmann was right there, stilting an arm to support it.

  “Whoa,” Charlie huffed, her first word since being strapped in.

  It was a sign she would live long enough to die with the same care she’d extended to others. This was all Nishimura’s fault. He could have wiggled out of the recovery assignment if he’d wanted. With the vote looming, no one would have blamed him. But pride, like a swallowed seed, had flowered in his chest. He’d wanted to prove he was Saint Karl, the best of them all.

  What was that, in a word? It was politics. The antithesis of what he wanted Old Muddy to be. If Richard Lindof had changed him that much so quickly, perhaps the result of tomorrow’s vote was inconsequential. There was a larger fight happening here, and he might have already lost it.

  It was a relief to leave the crowd behind. They galloped across Fort York Boulevard and waved aside Hospice’s soap sentry. The sharp scent of homemade soap battled with the scent of the hospital next door. Depending on the day’s disaster, this stretch of sidewalk might smell of urine, feces, blood, or even alcohol if someone had scrounged up an old bottle and drank themselves sick. Today’s smell was simply of bleach, and he welcomed it. It spiked up his nostrils like steel prongs, keeping Hospice’s own scent, that sickly sweet fetor, at bay for seconds longer.

  Hospice stank of rot, Nishimura did what he always did, gulping it fast to acclimatize, the way one cannonballed into a cold lake. No element of Fort York was more crucial than Hospice. It was the children’s rhymes writ large: acknowledging, knowing, and accepting death was the thing that might finally perfect life.

  He did not remember what the building had been before. A nail salon? A kickboxing studio? It had been remodeled, though not into the antiseptic beige bilge of pre-zombie medical centers. Hospice was not, in fact, medical in nature. All that divided the entry space from the realm of the softies was a single rail of mismatched curtains: one with pink polka dots, another with little football players on it. One had a Christmas-tree pattern. The unifying factor was real people chose them.

  Greer and Nishimura set the stretcher on the floor. No one was better at delivering bad news than the Face, Without being asked, he slipped through the curtains to tell Hospice workers one of their own had fallen. Greer backpedaled into a wall, as if only now, their package delivered, could she start to process her culpability. Hoffmann kneeled beside the stretcher, her inexpressive face shiny, as if bloating with tears that might explode her head just like the Chief’s.

  The farewell had come fast. They always did. Nishimura wiped his mind of all else, lowered himself, and looked at the dying woman, whose eyes had mellowed beneath a yellow film. He’d uttered enough comforts to the dying to have a script, but now he could not summon a word, This was Charlene Rutkowski. Charlie! Who’d played catcher in softball games at Coronation Park, the only player able to throw out a runner stealing second. Who’d once chased off a nagging Nishimura with two biting staple removers, Whom he’d found, one evening, weeping alone in a pretty dress that meant things to her he couldn’t guess. Who’d danced so hard to Born to Run when they’d gotten a turntable working her face was lost in all the frolicking hair. If Nishimura was the fort’s brains, Charlie had been its heart, and now they would have to survive on what she’d pumped out of herself. All told, it was quite a lot.

  “I’m…,” he began.

  “No sorries allowed here,” she whispered, “You know that.”

  He nodded, “But why did it have to be you?”

  “No long goodbyes either.”

  He nodded again. Charlie Rutkowski’s life would be celebrated soon, with so many tears shed into the soil he imagined the Garden bursting into winter bloom. Zombies, dumb as they were, had taught humanity a lesson. Death had multiple stages. Possibly stages the living still had yet to uncover. There was peace in that if you let it wash over you.

  “I ran in there without warning anyone,” he atoned. “I lost control.”

  “Lost control?” Charlie smiled. “Did you? Or did I?”

  He put his hand—so old—atop hers—so old.

  “You did perfect,” he said.

  “I reached out to her. My mother. She was sitting right there.” Charlie smiled. “She always loved donuts.”

  He nodded a third time. Most people dying from a zombie bite stopped making sense, and Charlie was not so skilled at Hospice work she’d be able to slow the fallowing of her own mind. Nishimura cupped a hand to Charlie’s face. Her skin was icy. Her blistering sweat made a wispy steam that hovered over her cheeks.

  “You were the best of us,” he said.

  “Ha.” Her grin cracked the sick glaze hardening her mouth. “You were, dummy.”

  He smiled.

  “Will you go back to the Bronx?” It was the Face, having surfaced from the rippling curtains. The gun he’d carried, the one Nishimura had fired, was gone; it was customary to turn it over to Hospice, who would, in turn, turn it over to the Council. The Face’s voice was dulcet; his arrival had been silent; he kept his distance even now. “If you have your choice, I mean.”

  “San Diego,” Charlie said. “Chet Musgrave’s generator was the best generator.” Her grin widened. “He was the Generator King.”

  The Face looked at Greer. Nishimura did the same. Backlit by dusk’s scarlet shimmer, Greer’s face was cloaked in shadow. Her bow clacked against the wall as she shrugged, the gesture a kid too self-conscious to mutter a socially prescribed politeness. It also served as an admission. Nishimura could tell Greer would wedge her jugular into Charlie’s mouth if it would transfer the venom. She’d already lost Muse, so why not? It was enough apology for Nishimura, and he figured it was enough for Charlie too.

  Curtains billowed, and a woman
appeared at the Face’s elbow. Next to Charlie, Marion Castle had the most Hospice experience, and pre-10/23 had worked in a nursing home. She was a five-foot-zero spark plug wearing the usual smock, gloves, and medical mask. Not usual at all was her expression. Charlie was not only her boss but a valued friend, and the free fall of losing her, paired with the sudden responsibility of replacing her, created a vertigo Nishimura recognized from the navy, where one person’s dismissal or death meant promotions all up the line.

  “Is one of you coming with her?” Her voice shook. “No one has to.”

  “I will,” Hoffmann said.

  She looked at Nishimura, not asking, but curious to see if she’d pulled rank. Nishimura nodded gently. Of course Hoffmann should be the one to escort Charlie through her final exit. He made a mental note to speak to Hoffmann’s assistant, Luvvie Lafayette, before the night was through, and another to check on Hoffmann herself. He did not know how she would handle the loss of the one person she trusted, His hope was that the irrepressible Luvvie had made enough inroads to hold both library and librarian together.

  Marion snorted, storing her sob for later. Crying was encouraged at Old Muddy, but Nishimura admired the effort. There was more work to be done tonight. Marion bent with her knees, lifting the head of the stretcher. Nishimura stood to make room for Hoffmann, who took the foot. Marion nodded the count, and they lifted on three. In an instant, Charlie Rutkowski passed from Nishimura’s view, and he knew he’d never again see her big, brash, scarred, amused, blond-framed face, though he did hear one last word from her as the Face held open the curtains and her bearers carried her away.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said, and Nishimura wondered who her unraveling mind believed it saw. Whoever it was, he was glad. People used to say you were born alone and died alone. Perhaps the zombies’ biggest gift was discounting the latter. Ushers waited for you now, just past the curtain, happy to show you to your seat.

  Half-Bomber, Half-Bombed

  Personal History Transcript #215

  Location: Fort York New Library

  Subject: Karl Nishimura

  Interviewer: Etta Hoffmann

  Time: 4,359–8:39

  Notes: None.

  Q.

  First, number one, now that we’re on the record, I want to formally apologize. I should have been the first one in to sit with you. I’ve been so busy. The expansion. You know how it is. But that’s no excuse. I hope you know there are few endeavors here at Fort York that I find more worthwhile, and on a personal note, more gratifying, than everything you’ve got going here at the New Library. Whether we change the world or not, who knows. But to have a record that we tried? Indispensable.

  Q.

  Mind? I insist. This is where you lead and I follow. I have a hunch you don’t see yourself as a leader, Hoffmann. But what’s a leader? It’s one who takes action so inspiring that others follow her. When I got here in Year Ten, there were, oh, three hundred people. Do you have any idea how many of those three hundred had heard of you? One woman here had called you a few times over the years. Lizzie Bonaparte. I don’t know if she’s shown you yet, but she’s a tattoo artist, and you know what she tattooed on her left arm?

  Q.

  ARE YOU OK? CALL ME. I have some regrets. It felt like we were common looters. I understand your plan was to leave the Archive to be found at some future time. But we knew people needed it now. We knew we could nurture it into a dynamic living thing. Lizzie had your number tattooed too, and we had that incredible phone still working. Landlines, can you believe it? Charlie’s calls … they were dishonest. Traveling to D.C. to rob you—and that’s the right word—was a calculated wrong, done for what we determined was a greater good, That you agreed to come with Charlie—I’ll just say I was overjoyed.

  Q.

  It had to be Charlie. Who else would you trust? We figured she could make it the five hundred miles to D.C. She came to us from San Diego, which is twenty-five hundred miles. She’s even got me beat. Puerto Vallarta to Toronto is twenty-three hundred. I’m competitive, I did the math.

  Q.

  I ejected from an F-18. That’s a fighter jet. The pilot, a top-notch sailor named Jennifer Angelys Pagán, had been stabbed before takeoff, by me, by accident, and we drifted way off course while I slept. She turned zombie just before we reached land. “Will one pinche man on this boat listen to me?” [Laughs.] I did listen. I ejected just like she explained. Everything, I suppose, went according to Hoyle. The chute deployed. I even steered it a little. When I hit the water, I did it like I learned in a class. Side of the foot, side of the hip, beneath the shoulder. Spread out the impact. Even so, I don’t recommend the experience. Every bone pounded to dust, I swear, You’re underwater, you’re choking, and then there’s the chute to deal with, like a sheet of wet cement. I couldn’t do it today. Fifteen years older? No way. But I got untangled, grabbed my seat kit, and started paddling. It didn’t even occur to me, even though Jenny told me, that both seats would eject together.

  Q.

  A parachute line? Some coral? It felt too much like a hand for it to be a hand, if that makes sense. I was pulled under so fast my eyes were open, and there she was, Jenny Pagán, weighed down by her flight suit and helmet, but doing just fine because she didn’t need to breathe. She’d saved my life a few times by then. It was like she regretted it. She had both hands around my ankle, and I started kicking, but I was spent. I was done for. She just reeled me in, right into her cloud of blood.

  Q.

  Would you believe a shark? Her blood, I think, is what did it. It snapped in like a big silver rubber band, chomped right into her waist. Soon as the blood cleared, I saw other sharks. I guess I had some strength to swim after all. Funny how apex predators will do that. I made it to the beach and just lay there for hours, and it was a good thing I got the rest. You know how the tide brings in seaweed and shells and flotsam, That’s what happened, except zombies. I don’t know if a ship went down, if there was a mass suicide, or what, but wave after wave of them rolled in, all green and bloated, so waterlogged they couldn’t stand. But they clawed right through the sand toward me. If I was ever going to give up, Hoffmann, on myself or the world, it was right then. Let them take me.

  Q.

  It’s a concern, and I appreciate it. But I’ll bet the Archive is going to be North America–centric for another decade. I wish I could tell you more about Mexico. I know I kept to the Gulf of California. Durango, Sinaloa, Sonora. Poor towns with buildings in baby-room colors. I don’t know what the Mexican government did or didn’t do, but it looked like guerrilla units had been through. Just death, death. Kids, babies, old people, everyone machine-gunned in the head, Sometimes I’d wake up to two different hums. One would be zombies in massive numbers a few miles away; I could see them undulating on the sides of mountains. The other hum was gunfire, like a swarm of bees. All I know is it was warfare, and I didn’t want any part of any war ever again.

  Q.

  Years. A few. A lot? You lose track. Compared to Olympia, it was easy. Story for another time, but I’m telling you, that was hell. This was like … paperwork. Like something I had to power through. One more mile. One more town. One more block. It wasn’t all on foot. There were caravans, all headed north. Things had to be better in America, right? I got onto some. But you don’t speak the language, you might as well be making zombie moans. Anytime someone had to be kicked off, it was me. I didn’t fight back. The time for fighting was over. Even then, in my Mexico years, I had that in my head. Zombies, they’re so slow, so stupid. If the living had known how not to fight, we’d be fine today. Fine? We’d be enlightened.

  Q.

  I did. My husband, Larry, and our kids, Atsuko, Chiyo, Daiki, Neola, and Bea. I got so hot sometimes, so thirsty and tired, I couldn’t even hold that many letters in my head. I shortened it to L-A-C-D-N-B. Me and those six letters crossed the border near El Paso. Felt appropriate, to be honest. My family was one of immigrants. Except at this border, the only
ones being shot at were zombies. The ones crossing borders—all kinds of borders.

  Q.

  I heard lots of things, but what do you trust? I heard about rich guys using zombies like armies out east. I heard about the Lion and the Dove carrying on like Robin Hood in the Midwest. I heard about the Patriots, this cult blowing up whole towns in Kansas. The only legend I laid eyes on myself was this one particular zombie who’d been through hell, all torn up, half-burned, close to softie status. She had these metallic legs and just would not go down. I ran into her in Taos. I was navigating this fallen ski lift and there she came, metal legs scissoring through the snow. I got my ax ready. When I told you I wouldn’t fight, I didn’t mean I wouldn’t defend. She came right up to me. The whole left side of her clothing was gone and her skin sparkled. It was frost. She’d partially frozen. It was actually pretty, and Hoffmann, I don’t know if you could tell it from D.C., but pretty wasn’t something anyone had seen in a long time.

  Q.

  Yes, the whole country would be beautiful soon. You might remember, scientists said climate change had doomed us. Our offenses were irreversible. Our grandchildren would be wearing oxygen masks. But they never counted on early human extinction, did they? You could hear it. Nature, inhaling and exhaling. Leaves trembling in pleasure. We died so the planet could live. I believe that. Maybe the zombie in Taos could tell I believed it. She left me alone. I left her alone too.